Political factions in Lebanon threaten to disrupt quorum and block election of candidates

3^min

In his recent interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, the leader of the Lebanese Forces Party, Samir Geagea, said: "We will prevent the parliament from reaching a quorum to prevent the election of a candidate from Hezbollah, namely the president of the Marada Movement, Sleiman Frangieh."

When we talk about the quorum of the election session, it means the presence of 86 deputies inside the hall out of a total of 128.

Therefore, disrupting the quorum requires the absence of 43 deputies. So, the deputies who have decided to disrupt the quorum based on the phone survey conducted by LBCI are 19 deputies from the Lebanese Forces Bloc, 17 deputies from the Free Patriotic Movement Bloc, four deputies forming the Kataeb Bloc, the Tajadod Bloc consisting of four deputies, Michel Moawad, Adib Abdel Massih, Fouad Makhzoumi, and Achraf Rifi.

From the Change deputies, based on those who responded to our calls, those who disrupted the quorum include Waddah Sadek, Paula Yacoubian, Cynthia Zarazir, Mark Daou, and Yassin Yassin. In addition, Michel Douaihy considers that boycotting the session may be necessary to have a reformist, rescue, and sovereign president.

Moreover, MP Michel Daher is likely to boycott to maintain consociationalism. Bilal Husheimi is expected to boycott in rejection of extending the crisis.

Therefore, the number of deputies who have decided to disrupt the quorum to elect Frangieh is 52, which makes holding the session impossible.

On the other hand, Hezbollah and Amal Movement duo can prevent the army commander's election. Hezbollah's (15 deputies) and Amal Movement (15 deputies), with their ally MP Jamil Al Sayyed, can prevent any session from electing the army commander, General Joseph Aoun, by simply absenting the 27 Shia deputies from the session, which would render it unconstitutional.

The duo (30 deputies) can also disrupt the quorum for any candidate they do not support if they also join forces with their allies, Tashnag (2 deputies) and Marada (4 deputies), in addition to the seven deputies close to them (Adnan Traboulsi, Taha Naji, Faisal Karami, Jamil Al Sayyed, Jihad Samad, Hassan Murad, and Haider Nasser) to disrupt the election session of any president they disagree on since they would then also form a disrupting bloc of 43 deputies.

In conclusion, the election of Sleiman Frangieh or Commander Joseph Aoun or any other candidate is unlikely without a consensus among the various political factions in Lebanon, as each group is able to disrupt the quorum or prevent the session altogether.